Scratch (50 page)

So what I felt in those weeks after Paula left was new, strange, and horrible to me. I didn’t possess the appropriate mechanisms to deal with it, hence my impression of a shambling, drunken Golem.

Everyone at work tried to be nice but they quickly got the message that I wasn’t up for a heartfelt conversation. I managed to re-master the basic
hellos
and
see you
laters
after a couple of weeks, but the hours in between found me grateful my new responsibilities gave me an excuse to hide in the office for much of the time.

Sammy could have been a tricky one. He wasn’t in The Basement all that much now, happy that I knew what I was doing with the paperwork, but he had to come in now and again. He’d been upfront about things the first time I saw him.

‘It’s all a big heap of shite and I’m sorry, Jim,’ he’d said. ‘But she’s my friend, so I can’t get into it with you.’

‘Fine by me, mate,’ I said, happy with that arrangement.

There was a wee do for Mark leaving and I felt obliged to stay for one drink. I stayed at the bar, though. As I headed for the door after my pint Mark caught me up and clapped a hand on my shoulder.

‘Jim, it’s been good working with you.’

‘Yeah, you too. Good luck with … the thing you’re going to do.’

‘Community Nursing,’ Mark said. He held on to my shoulder. ‘Listen, mate. Things are clearly shit for you just now and it’s none of my business, but try and stay strong, okay?’

‘Yeah, thanks. Do my best.’

***

After yet another night of anonymous, solitary drinking in pubs where no one knew me I dragged myself to the front door of the house and shakily tried to put my key in the Yale. I got it centred after a couple of seconds and pushed forward, but the key only got halfway into the lock before it stopped.

Fuck!
My mum or dad must have left their own key in the lock inside when they’d closed up shop for the night. I
hated
that. It meant I had to ring the doorbell and wake them up to let me in, resulting in a look of utter contempt from whichever one of them opened the door, despite it being their own bloody fault.

My dad appeared in his dressing gown after a minute and stood aside silently to allow me access. I made straight for the stairs, equally silent.

‘Jim,’ Dad said. ‘Can I have a word before you go up?’

I stopped on the second stair. ‘Eh, I suppose.’

‘Thanks, I’ll stick the kettle on.’

I followed him into the dining room, wondering what this was going to be about. I’d paid my fucking rent, after all.

I sat at the table feeling like a kid at the dentist until he came out of the kitchen carrying two mugs. He sat opposite me and slid my coffee across.

‘Your mother’s worried about you,’ he said.

‘I’m fine.’

‘You don’t look fine.’

‘I’m just tired.’

‘No, Jim. You’re drunk and exhausted, and have been for over a month. What’s going on?’

‘Nothing,’ I said, taking a slurp of coffee.

My dad sat back in his chair and looked at me. ‘Listen, son,’ he said, which was weird. He never called me ‘son’. ‘I know you and I don’t … talk much. That’s probably my fault; I’m not the best at communicating, sometimes.’

Sometimes?
‘Okay,’ I said, warily.

‘But there’s obviously something wrong, something that isn’t going away. Your mother …’ he paused. ‘
We’re
worried. We want to help.’

‘No offence Dad, but you can’t.’

He glared at me, took a deep breath and stood. I mentally braced myself for a verbal kicking, but he said nothing and went back into the kitchen.

I half expected him to come out brandishing a carving knife (I was drunk, remember) but instead he returned with an ashtray, which he pushed across the table to me.

‘Eh,’ I said, confused.

‘We might be old but we still have a sense of smell, Jim. We only played along so you wouldn’t smoke in the house, at least.’

‘Oh, okay.’ I stared at the small metal ashtray, still confused.

‘Light a fag and talk to me,’ Dad said.

I thought about it. Then I lit a fag and talked to him.

I told him everything, from Simon Fraser’s letter at Combined Utilities to watching Paula disappear out of my life in a taxi. I couldn’t help it, I just kept talking. I got to the bit where Paula told me she loved me before I started to cry, but I kept talking through the tears. And he didn’t interrupt me once. He listened, he just
listened
.

The ashtray was nine fag-ends heavier when I finished the story and looked up at my dad.

‘That’s it,’ I said, sniffing.

Dad looked at me in silence for a second. ‘Her father called you a wanker?’

I laughed, blowing a bubble of snot out of my nose. ‘Yeah, but I think he meant well.’

‘So let me get this straight. Wanker is good, idiot is bad?’

‘Apparently.’

‘Well in that case, you’re the biggest wanker I’ve ever met in my life, Jim Cooper.’

‘Cheers, Dad.’ I did feel a little better for having told the tale. Who knew?

‘You’ve made some very brave decisions in the last year, your mum and I know that. We’re proud of you, Jim.’

‘Yeah, I chucked a half-decent paid job to pull pints and moved back in here. I’m sure you’re
dead
proud.’

‘We are, actually. You looked at your life and realised you weren’t happy with it. That’s something everyone does on a regular basis, but you did something about it. Not many are willing to take that risk, especially when it involves the pay-cut you took.’

‘
D’you
know what, Dad? I appreciate you saying that, I really do. But to be honest, that’s not the biggest thing on my mind right at the minute.’

‘You’re right, sorry,’ Dad said. ‘Fucking love, it’s a bastard.’

What?
I’d never heard my dad swear before. I’d witnessed, and caused, many instances where he clearly wanted to, but he’d never given in to temptation.

‘Don’t get me wrong,’ he went on. ‘I wake up every day thanking God I met your mother. That’s the thing, though. I did meet your mother, just at the point where I was ready to give up the whole thing as a dead-loss. Did I ever tell you about Mary Jessop?’

‘You’ve never told me about anything,’ I said.

‘Mary Jessop broke my heart. I was nineteen when I met her at the
Barrowlands
. I asked her to dance and she said yes - that was a big deal in those days. We courted for ten months and I loved that girl with more passion that I knew I had in me.’

I couldn’t believe this was my father speaking. ‘What happened?’

‘She broke up with me,’ he said. ‘Never knew why, she just told me one night that she wasn’t happy and that was it. Never saw her again.’

‘How did you deal with that?’

‘Same way you are. I turned into a miserable arsehole.’

‘But you got past it?’

‘I did, eventually. It gets easier, Jim. It might not feel that way right now, but it does. You’ll stop thinking about Paula for a little longer every day, and eventually whole days will pass where you don’t think about her at all. It takes a while, but it happens.’

‘I’m looking forward to those days,’ I said. ‘But I’m not, too. I don’t want her to leave my head, because that means saying goodbye to her. I don’t think I’m ready to do that yet.’

Dad smiled. ‘You’ve never felt like this before, have you?’

‘No,’ I admitted.

‘Back when you left Combined Utilities, that was because you wanted to have another go at growing up, wasn’t it?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Well that was a start, Jim. But this, what you’re feeling now about Paula, that’s the thing that makes you a proper grown-up.’

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘Told you I wasn’t very good at this. What I mean is, until you’ve gone through this, you’re not ready for a real, adult relationship.’

‘I was ready, believe me,’ I said. ‘That’s the whole problem.’

‘And next time, when you meet the
right
person, you’ll still be ready.’

‘You’re making very little sense,’ I said. ‘No offence.’

‘You talked about having children, about growing old, with Paula?’

‘Yes, thanks for reminding me.’

‘And you’ve never done that before, with any other girl?’

‘No.’ I really didn’t know where he was going with this.

‘But it didn’t scare you, to think about all of that with Paula.’

‘Eh,
no
. That’s kind of my point.’

‘Now that you know how good it can feel to imagine sharing that sort of life with someone, you’ll be open to feeling it again when you meet the right girl.’

‘Dad, Paula
was
the right girl.’

‘No, son, she wasn’t. It would have made a lovely story to tell your grandkids if she had been, but she wasn’t. Or, rather, you weren’t the right man at the right
time,
for her. If you had been she wouldn’t have left.’

‘Is that supposed to make me feel better?’

‘Nothing’s going to make you feel better, Jim. You’ll only feel better when you’re ready to. You’re not the only person to go through this, you know.’

‘I know, Mary Jessop.’

‘Jim,
everyone
goes through this. I did, your mum did, and every person you’ve ever met almost certainly has, at
least
once. The only thing different in your case is it’s taken so bloody long for it to happen. This is what you probably
should
have felt when Paula moved to
London
, but for some reason you didn’t. But because deep down you knew she was special to you, you couldn’t commit properly to any of the other girls you’ve gone out with. You can’t move past someone without grieving for them, and you didn’t grieve for Paula twelve years ago. You’re actually bloody lucky she came back into your life because now you can go through the process and move on.’

‘I don’t feel very fucking lucky.’ I usually tried not to swear in front of him, but he started it. ‘I don’t think you’re getting this, Dad. This was
Paula Fraser
; she was it, the one. You don’t meet someone like her twice.’

‘That’s a lot of bollocks, Jim, of course you do. I met your mother, didn’t I?’

‘Look, I don’t mean to belittle whatever happened with Mary Jessop, but it’s not the same thing. You only knew her for a few months; Paula’s been in my head for fifteen years. And this …
shit
that I’m feeling, it isn’t just your standard broken heart, it’s more than that. It’s bigger than that.’

‘You’re a
special case
, is that what you’re saying?’

‘Well, yes.’

‘I love you dearly, Jim, but you’re not special. Your emotions are no more important to you than anyone else’s are to them.’